


the fiercest heart spoke, are you gone?

by actionreaction



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Beholding? More Like Being Held, Both textual and subtextual crying! just how i like it, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I guess. It takes place post prentiss attack at the institute, M/M, Season/Series 02, Sleepovers, Tim and Sasha are mentioned for like a second but dont actually show up, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Trans Male Character, bro we are archiving . its okay to cry around me bro ...., canon-typical Jon vacillating between being incredibly sweet and incredibly annoying, not important to the plot like at all im just trans and projecting!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actionreaction/pseuds/actionreaction
Summary: Jon can't sleep after Prentiss attacked the institute. Fortunately for him, Martin can't either.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	the fiercest heart spoke, are you gone?

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Car Seat Headrest's Famous Prophets (stars) which I had on repeat literally the entire time while i was writing this. I HIGHLY recommend it if you are gay and like to be sad

Somewhere in London, Jonathan Sims is laying on his back in bed with the fan on. The fan is too loud, and he needs to be able to listen out for worms, so he turns the fan off and crawls back into bed, but then his room is too hot and he kicks the sheets off of him, shirt sticking to his back, and then, feeling exposed without any blankets, he turns the fan back on. This cycle wears on for a painful two hours and forty five minutes, and when he looks at his clock it says 3:09 blinking up at him in red. 

He sits up and gropes around in the dark for his phone. He unlocks it, opens his contacts, stares at a photo of Martin Blackwood above his name and phone number with his thumb hovering over the dial button. He closes the app. Refreshes his email. Opens his contacts again, considering Tim or Sasha, but he knows that they went together to Tim’s house so both are probably sleeping. He looks at Martin Blackwood. His thumb is over the dial button. Martin is smiling in the picture, and he knows that this photo was taken during one of the very few nights he actually went out with the rest of the Archives staff. Martin had only just gotten a new phone and wanted a picture of all of them together as his new lockscreen, and ended up handing the phone off to some random person to take the photo. Martin texted them all the picture in the morning, when Jon was still asleep. Jon knows that next to Martin in the photo is himself, crossing his arms and pretending to think he’s above having friends. Jonathan Sims has always desperately wanted friends. His thumb is over the dial button. It is 3:22 in the morning. 

Jonathan Sims calls Martin Blackwood and Martin Blackwood picks up after only two rings.  
“Jon?” Martin sounds exhausted. Jon’s not sure when he learned what Martin sounds like when he’s exhausted.  
“Martin,” Jon says, and he hopes Martin doesn’t hear the way his heartbeat slows into a calm pattern when he hears him, “did I wake you up?”  
Martin laughs a little. “No. I keep thinking I see worms.”  
“Me too,” Jon says, like it’s a confession in and of itself, “But- it’s, it’s nice to know that there’s someone else. That I’m… not the only one who’s scared.”  
“Yeah,” Martin says. His voice is choked up when he whispers, “I’m terrified. I keep waking up and thinking there’s one in my hand again.”  
“I know how that feels.”  
“Yeah,” and there’s something in his voice that isn’t quite fear but isn’t quite grief either.  
It’s quiet, in a way that Jon would have hated if he didn’t have a friend on the phone. And Martin _is_ Jon’s friend. Friends don’t let friends panic alone in the dark late at night.  
“I think… hmm. I think you should come here,” Jon says, trying very hard not to let his voice have any sort of desperation to it.  
There’s a dreadful pause. Jon needs to course-correct immediately.  
“I mean, if you want to. Please don’t think you have to just because, I- just because I’m your boss. You can say no, Martin, I just thought that- that uh, maybe it would be easier to rest knowing that someone else is there. At least it would be for me. But maybe you don’t want that, which is fine-”  
“Calm down, Jon.” Martin doesn’t sound like he’s crying anymore, at least.  
“I, I, I, um…” Telling Jon to ‘calm down’ is a bit like telling a forest fire to stop burning.  
“I’m not saying no, I was just… surprised? And I don’t know where you live, so… heh, that would be helpful.”  
Jon obediently rattles off his address and he can hear as Martin puts him on speakerphone while he plugs it into the GPS.  
“I’ll be there in a bit.”  
“Call me when you’re outside, will you?”  
“Yes, of course. Don’t fall asleep on me, though.”  
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Jon half-laughs, half-sighs.

Martin arrives at 3:53. Jon gets his call and flings open the door a little recklessly for that late at night. Martin is in a hoodie, a white T-shirt, and tattered green sweatpants that are wildly ugly and yet sort of charming, if only because they belonged to Martin. Jon is not wearing his binder and he’s wearing a shirt that he’s pretty sure was originally Georgie’s because it’s emblazoned with the logo of a band he’s never listened to, and he’s in his boxers, and he knows that he should _probably_ be embarrassed about all of these things but he cannot at the moment bring himself to be embarrassed about any of them. Martin hugs him for just a moment, and it takes him by surprise so he doesn’t have enough time to react. He doesn’t have enough time to pull him closer. 

Jon gestures him into the flat, and Martin steps in, looking around. It’s not dirty- Jon’s grandmother was strict, and she wouldn’t buy him new books unless he had a clean room, so he learned from a young age to be somewhat immaculate. However, nothing in his flat conforms to any sort of aesthetic- there’s a quilt that his grandmother made folded over the back of the couch, and the only art in the entire flat was painted by Georgie, and there’s a stuffed cat toy on one of the bookshelves in lieu of an actual cat, which were banned by his landlord. Martin’s eyes land on the cat and his lips twitch up a little bit. 

“Thank you for letting me stay the night here,” is the first thing out of Martin’s mouth.  
“I think you might be doing me the favor here, not the other way around.”  
And just like that, the twitch of Martin’s mouth becomes a shy little smile. Jon thinks Martin might just be the one to save him.  
“Well, regardless.”  
Martin just smiles, that sweet little thing.  
“Tea?” He asks.  
“I- Martin, I’m your host, if anything I should be the one offering.”  
“Yeah, but you’re shit at making it. No offense.”  
“Hmm. Well, if you insist. Now, I was thinking I would drag all the pillows and blankets down here.”  
“Like a sleepover. I like it.”  
“I’ve never been to one,” Jon says, and almost immediately chastises himself for making it awkward.  
“Me neither. I’ve only ever seen them in movies.”  
Martin is filling the kettle with water and his back is to Jon, so he doesn’t see the way Jon’s eyebrows pull together after he says that. Martin has only seen sleepovers in movies. Jon has only read about them in books under the covers with a flashlight, longing for a world where girls thought he was cool enough to talk to and boys didn’t push him around anymore. 

“There’s a first time for everything, though,” Martin says, and he’s already putting a mug in front of him on the table and sitting in the chair next to him. Jon can only nod and hope Martin doesn’t notice that his eyes are wetter than they usually are. Martin looks awful- his eyes are all puffy from exhaustion or perhaps from crying, and it looks a bit like he’d been scratching at his hand where a worm had eaten its way into the fleshy space between his thumb and forefinger. It had already scabbed over by the time he’d given his statement, but Jon remembers being so ridden with guilt that night that he could barely sleep. If someone told him even six months earlier that he’d end up begging Martin “nothing but delays” Blackwood to come to his flat so he could finally rest because being alone was just so terrifying, he would have laughed in their face. But here they were. 

“Martin-” Jon can see Martin look at him through his periphery, but his eyes are firmly on his mug of tea. “I… I’m so sorry.” He rubs at his face with both hands.  
“It’s not your fault.”  
“No. Well, yes, I’m also sorry about what happened today, and I’m sorry about what’s happened over the last few months, and I’m sorry about everything bad that’s happened to you. In a sympathetic way, you know. But I’m- I haven’t always- I’ve been _so awful to you_.”  
“Oh.” Martin’s looking at his lap. “Jon, it’s- well, it’s not fine, I’ve heard the way you used to talk to Tim and Sasha about me, and it _hurt_ , really bad, but. I don’t know, I guess I’d already forgiven you. It’s nice to hear you apologize, though.”  
“You’re too nice,” Jon says, feeling awful.  
“It’s what I’m good at,” Martin says like he’s trying to make the best of a bad situation, but it just sounds incredibly sad.  
“Yes, well. You’re also good at removing worms,” Jon says, obviously hoping to lighten the mood.  
Martin cracks a little smile.  
“You think so? How much do you think something like that would pay?”  
“Depends if it’s an hourly wage or if it’s based on how many worms you remove.”  
“Are there benefits?”  
“The only benefit is knowing that there are fewer worms.”  
“Hmm. Well, I suppose someone has to do it.”  
“How very noble of you.”  
Martin snorts. It’s cute. “But how will the archives ever go on without my contributions?”  
Jon laughs. It feels good, knowing that they can joke about this. Maybe they just haven’t fully processed the terror of yesterday. Maybe they never will.  
“I’m not sure we could, to be honest,” Jon says, too tired to filter out the vulnerability from his tone.  
“C’mon, I know you’re not a fan of how I research.”  
“That’s not. Well. That isn’t the only thing that needs doing in the archives now. We need someone who- I don’t know. It’s so late, Martin.” He finishes with a quiet laugh, pathetic to his own ears.  
“I think I know what you mean.” Martin scratches at the stubble on his jaw. Martin is usually clean shaven, but extenuating circumstances, et cetera.  
“Want to help me get the blankets from the closet? I’ll get the pillows.” Jon says, standing up too fast and holding on to the back of his chair for support.  
“Woah there,” Martin says like he’s talking to a skittish horse, and some wretched part of him wants to snap at him. Old habits die hard, he supposes. But Martin isn’t something to be shouted at- he’s Jon’s friend. He might actually be Jon’s best friend, now that he thinks about it. 

They pull out all of Jon’s blankets, both the light ones and the heavy ones, and arrange both regular and throw pillows on the floor. Jon had actually originally wanted to sleep on the floor so Martin could take the couch, but Martin puts his pillows and blankets only a few feet away from Jon’s. They’re sitting cross-legged, drinking the last of their tea from earlier, and Martin is fidgeting with the hem of one of the pillowcases.  
“You know, I had resigned myself to never getting to have a sleepover when I was a teenager. But now I’m having my first one in 29 years.”  
“You’re only 29?”  
“Wh- Yes? Why wouldn’t I b- Oh. Shit.”  
Martin’s grin is wide and Jon can’t tear his eyes away.  
“You know, I knew you lied about that. You’re my age!”  
“Oh? Well, I seem to remember you telling Tim that you were 34. Funny how that works, Martin.”  
“Okay, I get it, we’re both completely ridiculous.”  
Jon knows Martin has worked at the institute since 2006. Jon is trying to do the math in his head, now, though, and-  
“Martin, when did you graduate?”  
Martin’s smile vanishes as he sucks in a breath.  
“Martin?”  
“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, passionately, with all the emotion in his body, “I’m such an idiot.”  
“Martin, what is it?” Jon can’t help but wring his hands, biting his lip, a million anxious tics masquerading as a human man.  
“I’m- Jon, can you please wait till Monday to fire me?”  
“ _What?!_ ”  
“Isn’t it obvious? There’s no way a 19 year old would get a job at the Magnus Institute. I _lied_. I didn’t _go_ to college, I didn’t even finish high school. Fuck, I should have known that this was going to happen, I’m so stupid-”  
“Martin. Listen. Look at me.”  
Martin, thankfully, stops spiralling for a moment, and looks up at Jon with nothing but fear in his eyes.  
“I’m not going to fire you. I’m not going to tell Elias. You’re going to keep your job. We just- Christ, we were just attacked by worms. You just came to my house because I was too scared to sleep on my own. Maybe I would have told Elias, at one point, but I’m not that person anymore. I’m not going to fire you. I’m _never_ going to fire you.”  
To Jon’s horror, Martin’s eyes well up with tears. He drops his head, sniffling a bit.  
“I shouldn’t have even brought it up,” Jon mumbles.  
Martin either laughs or sobs in response to this. 

“It’s not that, I just… I feel this great weight lifted right now, and I’m not really, um, reacting correctly to this, or to, er, to anything right now? I think I might still be a little emotionally fucked from thinking I was about to die earlier. You’re being so nice to me and I don’t know how to deal with it.”  
“Oh, Martin,” Jon says all heartbroken, because he doesn’t know what else he possibly _could_ say, and reaches out to wrap his arms around Martin’s shoulders. Martin’s crying a little wet patch into Jon’s shoulder, and Jon has never been good at comforting people. Jon has rarely had people in his life who needed to be comforted. His hand is resting directly over another worm scar on Martin’s shoulder blade, and while Martin’s scars are fewer and farther between, the idea of even one worm having the audacity to hurt him makes him angry and heartbroken. Jon is bad at touch, sometimes, flinching away easily and never certain in his actions- but Martin isn’t. Jon needs to hold Martin because if Jon ever needed something from him he would give it immediately and selflessly. And if all Jon can give in return is a shoulder to cry on, so be it. He knows, distantly, that he’s crying, too, and that all he can do is hold tighter. 

“I am so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re with me. I’m- fuck, Martin, I’m so glad we’re alive. We made it. We’re not okay, but we made it, and I’m so scared but I’m not alone. I’m not alone, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Martin.” He whispers these things into Martin’s hair with little to no regard to whether or not he can hear them. He says them, repeats them again and again like a prayer to a god with no name. 

It’s an unknown amount of time later that they separate. Martin sniffles, then laughs, then rubs at his eyes. Jon gets up to get two glasses of water.  
“We’ll get terrible headaches if we don’t rehydrate after, er… that.”  
“I’ve ruined your shirt.”  
“I do have other ones. I’ll survive.”  
Jon downs the rest of his water and changes into a new shirt. His eyes are red when he looks into the mirror, and he’s overdue for a haircut. Maybe he’ll grow his hair out. Save himself some money.

When he returns to the living room, he turns out the lights before crawling toward the little pile of blankets. He closes his eyes. Martin sighs.  
“Thank you for being here. Thank you for coming.”  
“Well, thank you for inviting me,” Martin says, voice a little wobbly but more stable than it was before.  
“I mean it. I think… I think you saved me. From what, I don’t know. My own head, or something. I think sometimes I get so stuck in my mind I forget other people exist. And just by being here you’re helping with that. I can’t push you away anymore. It didn’t work. I think the only thing I can do is bring you all closer.”  
Martin is silent except for a faint rustling. Jon opens his eyes and rolls to face him, only to find that Martin is looking at him already.  
“You know I’ve got you, too, right? We’ve got each other.” Martin’s voice is so soft as he says this.  
Jon can feel something taking root in his heart, in his gut, and he’s not sure what he wants to call it. He stretches his hand out, halfway between them, and hopes Martin gets it. He does, of course, reaching out and carefully lacing their fingers together. Martin is so delicate with him, like he’s a flower or fine china. Or, no, that isn’t right. Martin has always touched him like he’s a poem. Something beautiful and meaningful with a lot of thought put into it. 

Jon can name it, and it’s on the tip of his tongue- love. Jon loves Martin, and possibly more importantly he wants to trust him, and when has Jon ever let himself have something that he wants? He’s earned it. He’s allowed to trust Martin- how could he not? After the worms, the nightmares, the way they just cried onto each other for what seemed like an infinity. 

“You have me. You do. I…” The hesitation is useless, Jon knows, because these words seem to force themselves out of his brain and into his mouth. They want to make themselves known. “I’m yours, Martin. I trust you.”  
He can hear him inhale sharply.  
“Jon, I…” He laughs.  
“Sorry, I’ve just made everything uncomfortable, haven’t I?”  
“No! Not at all. I just… you know I’ve been in love with you since March, right? I wasn’t being subtle.”  
“You love me?” Jon can feel himself smiling.  
“Yes,” Martin says, “I… ever since you let me stay in document storage. Like, before that, you were just handsome, but after I knew you were also sometimes… nice. And protective. And I remember thinking about it and thinking about it and realizing, _‘oh, I love him.’_ Just like that.”  
Jon’s smile grew impossibly bigger.  
“You think I’m _handsome?_ ”  
“Yes, well, I also think you’re insufferable, so…”  
“You seem to have enjoyed suffering through being around me so far.”  
Martin’s next remark is cut short by Jon pressing a tiny kiss to the scar on Martin’s hand.  
“I love you too, just so you know.”  
“Go to _sleep_ ,” Martin says, and he’s laughing again, and it’s a delightful sound, “It’s too early. You told me to come here so we could get some _rest_.”  
“Alright. But, one more thing?”  
“Yes?”  
“Coffee date tomorrow?”  
“Of course. Goodnight.”  
“Goodnight,” Jon says, and it is.

**Author's Note:**

> UH HI thank you for reading. I cranked this out in like 3 hours spread out over 2 days. i am also very impatient and that is my explanation for why things move so fast here. If you liked it consider giving me a follow on tumblr @/slorpn or on twitter @/corpseroots. If you are my mutual already, hi :)


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